Q: What grades were you teaching--high school, middle school, or elementary
school?

A:
Upper grades and then I was a teacher/principal for a long time. I don't
know how many years.

Q: Was this a big school or a small school?

A:
I started off in a school with four teachers--no I started off in a one-room
school--then I was in a four-room school, and then a six-room school, and
from then to a twelve to fifteen--twelve teachers possibly--and later I
was principal at a junior high school and there we had twenty-four or twenty-five
teachers.

Q: How many years as a principal together?

A:
Well, let's see, four from forty-seven would be about forty three years.

Q: Wow! Was it--how difficult was it to be the principal and the teacher? You
said you were in a principal/teacher school.

A:
Well, chiefly as a principal/teacher I taught say half a day and then
the other half a day I was more or less business manager uh building manager--that
type of role where you attend to many of the administrative details. I uh
had very little time to be instructional leader. Of course, I also handled
the major discipline problems that were referred to me and was involved
to some extent in community activities as the teacher/principal. In fact,
uh we went through a long period of time when most of the principals taught
part of the time. We had no secretarial help--no assistant principals.

Q: You did it all. I'm familiar with the school that you were in here with
the open-space school. Before that what type of school?

A:
I was in a junior high school.

Q: You were in a junior high school before you came to the elementary?

A:
Yes.

Q: Was it a large school?

A:
Well, we had twenty-five or twenty-six teachers and uh at most we had
more than eight hundred students.

Q: What did you find the most difficult in making the transition from the junior
high to elementary?

A:
Well, I didn't find anything difficult because I had taught in elementary
school. I was an elementary major and a secondary major in my uh training
for the principalship and as a teacher--so I didn't find any difficulty
in changing from the junior high school to the elementary school.

Q: Did you find any big difference in how your duties changed?

A:
Yes, chiefly because uh when I went to the elementary school, I had an
assistant principal who took care of many of the administrative details
like following up on absentees, supervising the lunchroom activities, and
things of that type and I played the role chiefly as the instructional leader.

Q: Did you enjoy that more than the administrative side of it?

A:
Oh well sure, that's what principals should be doing. I never could accept
the concept and the school where the principal gets an assistant and makes
him an instructional leader and then he continues to be the building manager.
After all, I think his training should be in the area of leadership.

Q: Do you think that your approach is unique and that more principals tend
to do it the other way?

A:
Yes, I think so. I visited some good schools in different parts of the
country where uh the principal was the instructional leader and they were
good schools.

Q: Why did you decide to become a principal?

A:
Economics. I got a little pay boost uh for being principal and I needed
every cent I could get. After all I was married and uh the year I had children--brought
four children--and uh things were tight so I could not have stayed as a
teacher had I not had this supplement of the principal and then it was difficult
enough.

Q: Did you miss the children when you made the transition from being with them
all the time to seeing them occasionally?

A:
Sure. That's the chief disadvantage of being the principal is that you
don't have as direct a role with the youngsters.

Q: To see the day to day progress?

A:
Sure. And there's just a certain amount of joy in classroom teaching.
At least there was for me and I miss that.

Q: During the years--forty-three years is a long time--what type of changes
did you see in the children? You said it was a joy to be with them and did you
see changes in the type of children you got?

A:
Well, of course, in my earliest days I taught in a mountain school and
then in a small country school with four teachers. Uh later as I moved into
the larger school where I had more children who were exposed to the influences
kids get involved in around town, sure discipline problems were different.
But by and large youngsters are basically the same and uh I did see in the
later years, of course, the groups coming into the schools and I had to
deal a great deal more with youngsters intentionally disrupting class, uh
being disrespectful to the teacher.

Q: How did you handle the drug situation?

A:
Well, fortunately I got out before it got so bad, but each time we identified
a youngster who was using drugs at school we just called the parents in
and sat down and just uh talked with them about the matter, let them know
what was going on and let the youngster know that we would not tolerate
it at school and uh we had very little of it in the junior high school in
the days that I was there. You must remember that I left the junior high
school twelve, uh, seventeen years ago and I'm sure it's quite different
now.

Q: Did you ever see any evidence of drugs in elementary school?

A:
No.

Q: There was just the effect of parents using drugs and the effects it could
have on children in the elementary school?

A:
No, I didn't see any indications of it with youngsters in the elementary
school. None that were recognized.

Q: Why did you--why did you suppose and I've noticed this too about the children
intentionally acting out in class--why do you suppose this has come to be so much
in the classroom? Is it that they're not maybe not getting enough attention at
home?

A:
You mean disrupting the class?
Uh hun, just intentionally disrupting.
Well, I think, of course, we have a greater percentage of youngsters now
who are disrespectful to their parents. Part of this is because of both
parents working out of the home, not having as much time to spend with the
children and I'm not sure that in many of the families both parents come
home and they're not home at the same time, they're tired, they're exhausted.
The wife in particular has to take care of the household chores and there's
very little time to deal with the children and uh children are chiefly engaged
in watching television and a lot of the examples they see are the big man
stuff uh I think influences them to be uh show off, smartalecky, disrespectful
to the teacher. And of course we have this not only uh we have this right
on through adult level now in the community where adults are purposefully
insulting to authorities--police officers and such--so that the adults are
setting this type of thing as an example for the children so naturally it's
going to show up in the classroom.

Q: What was your schools' philosophy?

A:
Pardon me.
Well, how do you define a school philosophy? What does a school believe
in?
It's a composite of what the staff believes in and the staff I'm sure
is influenced by the philosophy of the principal as well as the belief of
the other members of the staff and in an effort to write the school's philosophy.
When teachers do it to do this cooperatively as a committee, usually the
thing I got back even when I played a part in developing it myself was the
textbook kind of quotes that maybe somebody wrote as an example of a good
philosophy for a school. And it's very difficult to get teachers to compose
a statement of philosophy.

Q: Do you think a school needs a philosophy?

A:
Well, it has one. Defining it is difficult and usually it is defining
it is pigeon-holed and seldom referred to. Maybe the act of defining it
does have a positive effect. I don't know how to gauge that.

Q: Since we mentioned teachers, over the years did you generally find teachers
to be cooperative or in your length of service did the teachers' approach to education
change?

A:
Yes, I saw uh quite a change on the part of some teachers. I believe in
the later years of my teaching that I saw fewer dedicated teachers. Back
in my earliest days uh nearly all of the teachers that I worked with were
very dedicated and hard working and very conscientious. In my later years
I would see a few who were not very dedicated and I think were looking forward
to using teaching as a stepping stone to something else. Or uh not seemingly
very devoted to the hard work of teaching uh particularly the planning and
the preparations and the follow through on the uh checking papers. Uh now
don't misunderstand me. Uh I say this about only a few. The majority of
the teachers that I dealt along with in the schools I worked, worked in
harmony with me. I was never in a school where there were two or three factions
on the staff competing with each other and acting negatively with each other.
I have observed it in some other schools. I never had this in a school where
I was principal.

Q: Do you feel your approach towards the running of the school has an influence
on this--that you didn't have these factions?

A:
Well, I sure like to give myself whatever credit I can. I think that was a
factor some way or other. The staffs that I worked with very generally uh generated
a cooperative attitude and the rapport between me and most of the staff was
good. I'm sure there were times when someone would get a little provoked about
something. I'm glad that maybe I didn't hear some of the remarks but I never
once involved in uh conflict between me and the teachers nor did I see seldom
did I ever see conflict among the teachers.

Q: Can you pinpoint those things in your leadership style that you think
influenced those things that kept it--kept conflict from occurring?

A:
Well, I always tried to be a good listener and I always tried in discussion
with teachers individually and in groups sometimes in whole staff meetings
and sometimes in team or department meetings we would just sit around and
talk. I tried to convey to the teachers that I was a listener, that I could
listen to them and consider what they had to say. If they had a problem
that they wanted to express it that and uh I would support them, that if
they wanted to stick their neck out to try something that was a bit innovative
why yes I would support them in it. I think such things contribute to harmony
on the staff where there is trust between teachers and between teachers
and principal.

Q: Did--I'm sure you were involved in teacher evaluations. How did you handle
that?

A:
Well, I never was ever involved very much in a checklist kind of evaluation
if that's the kind of thing you refer to which is being done more now. I
think that it was in my day as a principal there was a few times in my experience
when the superintendent had one of his leaders develop a checklist and have
us use--uh my evaluations consisted of writing annotations and filing and
keeping them absolutely secret and confidential except when I was having
a conversation with that teacher. I may then refer to something that occurred
before especially if it was a case where the teacher needed some help and
sometimes teachers needed help and they didn't know it. But uh I resolved
early that if I ever had to talk to a teacher about changing direction that
I would have some support for it.

Q: Did just the process of evaluating teachers become an issue of conflict--resentment
on their part--something of that type?

A: Uh, yes, couple of times. I say maybe as many as three or four times,
but it was not a lasting kind of conflict.

Q: Did you ever have to let a teacher go?

A:
Uh, I never had that authority.

Q: Or were you in a position where you made recommendations to the
Superintendent to let people go?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you have to make such recommendations?

A:
Yes.

Q: How did you handle that in regard to your relationship with
the person involved?

A:
Well, of course, I never made such a recommendation unless I had uh spent
a number of times talking with the teacher and reviewing the problems and
uh and I never recommended the dismissal of the teacher. Twice I recommended
that the teacher be moved into a different setting.

Q: Uh, a different school, a different grade level, what exactly do
you mean by a different setting?

A:
Well, one case it was different a different level. Yes, one teacher one
time was a teacher with an elementary background and wanted to teach at
the junior high school level and just didn't seem to relate to youngsters
of that age very well and I recommended that the teacher go back to the
elementary school. And uh this teacher uh felt like doing so would be an
admission of defeat and was going to hang in there when it wasn't really
good for the teacher or the children and it resolved itself very well and
later on I don't think there was any enduring hard feeling about it.

Q: Do you feel that the principal should have had the power--that you should
have had the power to let someone go, to terminate someone if they needed to
be?

A:
Well, I don't think there is anytime the principal should have the final say
in a dismissal, but I think if he recommends dismissal he better have pretty
good documentation of what the problem is.

Q: During your tenure as principal did you see changes--I'm talking about
the documentation in what was required of you before you could make a recommendation?
Did it become more stringent?

A:
No, I think maybe that was maybe the absence of such of uh an attempt
to define what is expected of the teacher is a shortcoming but we just never
had that--any written definition of what is expected in the role even to
the point of uh oh uh swearing in front of children, talking to youngsters
in class about belief in free sex, and uh you can probably think of a number
of extremes. And the fact that I think we have never had a definition of
that type of thing I think is a shortcoming.

Q: You mentioned the type of evaluation that was a checklist--occasionally
you had those. If you were going to have an evaluation system that you thought
would be best for evaluating teachers what would it look like? Would you want
a checklist or would you rather it was left rather subjective?

A:
For my part I would rather be subjective rather than the checklist I think
possibly. I can't argue against it. Uh I think if teachers would be involved
in developing such a checklist, it would be more acceptable to them. Uh
I know the few times I had to use such a checklist with the teacher if I
uh suppose we had a scale of one to five and uh one and two is low if there
was any time in evaluating that teacher that I would give a low rating I
would get a negative reaction right away. And I would much rather have would
have much rather sat down with you personally and privately and talked about
the matter rather than coldly checking off...
So you think...
. . .and this goes in the file.

Q: Do you think the matter of the number itself that sort of upsets someone?

A:
That may be a factor if you're going to check. Uh how do you make a checklist?
Do you uh the only other way to do it would be to write an annotation after
each.

Q: What was your biggest headache as a principal?

A:
I would say the biggest one was the fact that we always had more youngsters
than we ought to have who wouldn't study, who wouldn't do any preparation,
or almost no preparation and did not feel that getting a paper in when it
was due was important and uh no concern over getting a low mark. Because
of uh this kind of thing was my biggest concern or my biggest headache.
Now I had there were different times when certain uh uh tense issues would
develop over something else, maybe over behavior such as that, and part
of the going through of that period that would be a big headache, but it
wouldn't be an enduring kind of thing.

Q: What was your biggest joy?

A:
Well, I don't know. I just always liked to get up and go to work. I enjoyed
the challenge of it and uh uh everyday was a different day. It was never
monotonous.

Q: If you had it to do over, would you do it again--go into education, be a
principal?

A:
Uh, I don't know. I'd have to think on that one a while. You might have
to stop that. What would I like to change? Well, uh I would like to on the
part of the professionally-trained principal and assistant principal I would
like to take away from him uh the duties any good secretary can do and I
would like to take those duties away from the teacher. Uh I think the teacher
ought to be able uh to really feel compelled to plan, to do preparations,
and to follow through on the lesson--on the on reading those papers. How
can you teach mathematics without grading the kids' papers? How can you
teach English without doing it? And yet, and yet there are so many duties
demanded of teachers that it's difficult to do those things. For example,
when I was at the junior high school, it was not unusual for a math teacher
to have 150 youngsters a day plus then uh the playground supervision, hall
duties, lunchroom duties, uh collecting the lunch money--finally we got
around to a cash register, that was a great help--and the things and in
other words I think the thing I would like to change most is to cast the
teacher always in the role of educator. Uh and uh right now the teacher
has a lot of those other things to do.

Q: During your time you probably saw a lot of change and we talked about some...

A:
(I'm shifting I'm sorry)

Q: O.k. Were you involved much at the time integration occurred?
Was that a big factor in your district?

A:
No, it wasn't any problem to us. I got the first black children in the
secondary schools of Berkeley County and I didn't have any problem.

Q: Did you have any problems with parents over this situation?

A:
No, just quietly came in and took their place and uh and when some of
the white kids started to hassle the black youngster uh I would just call
him in and talk to him about it and uh it seemed to disappear. If they didn't
want to have anything to do with them they just ignored them rather than
give them a bad time. And I had the first black teacher in my school the
junior high school in Martinsburg and uh she taught with me for two years
and then uh took off for health reasons. I think part of that was tension.
After all there was a great deal of stress for a black teacher coming into
a predominantly white school and but uh but I'm sure she had physical problems
too. Then two years later she came back and she was an outstanding teacher.
She did a good job and after a while uh she was accepted by the kids. No
problem uh she didn't have any more problem than other teachers have, some
other teachers have. She was really a pretty good teacher and the youngsters
responded to her.

Q: Did you have any problems with parents not wanting their children in her
room?

A:
No.

Q: When she first came?

A:
No. I'm sure there was some apprehension at first but uh it didn't create
any problem.

Q: What effect did the federal aid to education have on your school--Elementary
and Secondary Education Act and a lot of federal aid that came in?

A:
Well, it brought in some special teachers that uh would that would pull
youngsters out of regular classroom settings for part of the time. Uh, uh
and sometimes this was resented on the part of the regular classroom teacher
because it would take the youngsters out at a time when the teacher felt
that his or her role was more important. At the time this was one factor.
We had special reading teachers to come in and special remedial teacher
would maybe come once a week by bus. Did we have that when you were there?
I don't remember. We had a hearing/speech uh therapist. I can't think of
all of the impact of federal aid, but there was quite a bit of that.

Q: Do you think that overall it was a good thing or not?

A:
It's difficult to judge. I have no way to measure. There were a uh couple
youngsters in speech therapy that were helped greatly. Uh the struggle we
have with children who need special help in reading is a struggle no matter
who does it and I'm sure that the individual or almost individual help those
youngsters got was uh was valuable. The regular classroom teacher who has
twenty-five or thirty youngsters can find very little time to give those
children the individual kind of help they need. So theoretically it was
a good program--have no way to measure the results. I don't really know.
All I know is that it was very costly.

Q: Did you have special education classes or classes for handicapped, classes
for mentally-retarded, anything like that?

A:
Well, the most seriously handicapped went to a special school. They were
not mainstreamed at that time. Now they are being mainstreamed back into
the classroom and uh and I have some reservations about that. On the other
hand, I have a lot of reservations about some of the youngsters who were
sent to the handicapped school. Some I think went because maybe certain
teachers didn't want to fool with them, and I'm not sure they were candidates.
Very careful screening has to be done when they are sent to a special school.
On the other hand, when I see a child who needs nursing care individually
all day put into the mainstream and one person full-time paid person does
nothing but attend to that child I just question that child ought to be
in the public school. I don't know if you have any of that in your schools
or not, but I've seen--I never had it in one of my schools, one of the schools
where I was principal--but I've seen it in other schools.

Q: Did you have any special ed classes in your school itself?

A:
Yes, yes, we had special ed. We had a teacher full time who took youngsters
for special ed, and they would be in the mainstream except to be brought
out for maybe one period uh in which they worked with the special ed teacher
and the teacher would have only maybe five, six, seven, or eight youngsters
at a time. And then, of course, maybe another hour this teacher would take
some other children see out of the mainstream of a different age. That's
the way we used it in our school down at Valley View. Uh, uh I don't believe
you were there at the time that came later.

Q: Do you feel that effectively met the needs of those children?

A:
Well, I think it helped them. I think it helped because again those youngsters
needed the small-group instruction that the regular classroom teacher just
didn't have the time to give.

Q: I understand that you were also involved with an open-school.

A:
Yes.

Q: What were your views? Did you like the open-school concept
or did you prefer the more traditional?

A:
No, I liked it very much, and I think it's a crying shame that many open
schools have been built over the country and then they were never operated
as such. They were just operated as conventional schools without any walls
in them. And, of course, they didn't work so of course the open concept
fell into disrepute and it's been abandoned almost uh entirely. But some
of the best schools I visited were schools that really were schools in which
the teachers were involved in uh in team teaching, large- and small-group
instruction, and this type of thing--things that you can't very well do
in the conventional type of building. So I think it has a lot of strengths.
It takes a lot of doing and it's hard work. It isn't easy. Yes, it's hard
work, it takes dedicated teachers who are willing to work hard and long.

Q: Did you find your teachers to be receptive to doing that?

A:
I had a wonderful staff uh and the ones that, and there weren't many,
the ones that didn't fit in to that very well asked to be moved. We just
kept it open. If you don't feel comfortable, if you don't feel comfortable
in this setting and you would like to change, ask for a change and our superintendent
did this. And some of our good teachers, of course, left because they moved
or uh went to some other position like counseling, supervision, this type
of thing.

Q: Was your school physically, how was it organized--grade-level pods, just
describe it for us.

A:
Well, chiefly uh we did not have the first grade. They were in another
building. We got them after they had been in school, some of them kindergarten
and the first grade. We got them and the second and third year youngsters
uh we had in their own part, their own wing of the building and in their
own teams. Now the teams were made up of mostly three teachers and about
uh ninety youngsters.

Q: What type of things did they do instructionally? You talked about the teaming--the
things they could do that they couldn't do in the traditional setting.

A:
Well, the interaction between teachers where in one teacher is good with
a large group--one teacher sometimes take 120 youngsters and do a good job
with them. Uh and there was some of that done. And then, of course, when
a certain type of a large group was being managed by one teacher, another
teacher could take a smaller group--a smaller group that needed some type
of special help. In this respect now uh these were the chief advantages
of uh of that allowing for. And another big advantage I think is that you're
very visible, and there's no goofing off. There's no opportunity to. You
don't have a chance to. If you do, the rest of the team feels that you are
dragging your feet and you're not there pulling your share of the load and
pretty soon that teacher gets the message. And, of course, that's the teacher
who becomes a candidate to move into some other setting. Uh another thing
is that uh the teacher has to uh can observe other teachers teaching which
in a conventional school when can they ever get a chance to do this, to
see a good teacher teach and to uh to observe some of their techniques.
So there's a lot of inter...a lot of opportunities for this type of interaction.
Uh as I say, it's hard work and takes a lot of planning. Now we, of course,
we set our schedule up so that uh we so that our teachers had a half day
of planning every week. And uh and they used that time for planning. There
was only one time when I had to ever had to in the five years that I was
there that I ever had to speak to two teachers who were using planning time
to be sociable and they accepted it very well and uh I didn't see it anymore.

Q: Do you feel there was any disadvantage to the open school, anything that
you could put on the negative side?

A:
Well, I suspect in the open concept that there were some youngsters who
were who were somewhat hyperactive in that they were they always got to
know what's going on so that their attention was divided a good bit. Uh
how much more than in the regular classroom I don't know because that same
child is diverted in the regular classroom by the other things that are
going on and in the open all out in the open maybe more so. Oh I can't say.
I think Mrs. Linscomb could say better than I because she worked with these
youngsters, she observed them this more than I. If I walk into an area and
a youngster doesn't have his nose in a book, I don't know how much of his
time that he's doing this type of thing, that he's looking over to see,
what's going on. It may be that I just walked in at the time he was doing
it. Of course, the teacher who's there with them all the time, they would
know better what kind of problem that was.

Q: We've mentioned a couple of things that probably happened during your tenure--changes
like integration, the federal aid, the open school, the special education coming
in--what do you think during the time you were a principal had the biggest impact
on education or on you in particular? What change, what event brought the most
change for you?

A:
I don't know how to answer your question really. I understand your question.
I don't know how to answer it really. What brought the most change for me?
Uh, well, I think going from a conventionally-structured school to an open
school represented possibly the greatest change for me. I did more special
study for that than for any other move I made, of course.

Q: How did you see funding change over the years? Did you get more funding
for the schools, was it always a struggle to try to get money from the public
to support the schools, or maybe you weren't ever involved in it?

A:
We went through periods uh of having bond elections and uh what we called
extra levy elections uh to raise additional monies for the support of schools.
The bonding issues were to build new buildings, and, of course, the extra
levies were to supplement teachers' salaries and do uh oh uh maybe small
improvements in certain buildings. And in the county there were times when
we had uh uh very loyal support of the public. In fact, there were times
when uh such elections would carry by ninety percent. Then we went through
a period in which uh in which we lost these elections and the opposition
was so strong against them uh that uh there was some bitterness generated
between members of the public and teachers uh over the elections in fact
uh.

Q: What do you think caused this shift in from support for and suddenly against?

A:
Oh, I've often tried to figure out what brought that on. Uh certain negatives,
certain opposition uh if it's very vocal will always generate a following
and sometimes this sort of snowballs is one thing. And the other kind of
thing was that, uh maybe the election wasn't very well uh promoted, wasn't
very well explained. I do remember in one case in particular we were to
have an election sometime in January and by the first of December we weren't
making any effort in this county to explain it to the public as to what
it was to be about and uh it didn't carry either and that started more or
less a downhill kind of thing. Another factor is uh if uh if the superintendent
is really a public relations person--here in our state uh doesn't have a
great deal of charisma, doesn't generate a lot of confidence uh out in public--uh
the public seems to lose confidence. This is a factor. Now don't misunderstand
me. I'm not blaming it all on the superintendent but uh that's a factor.
And then,too uh and uh there were times when certain when an incident too
would occur in a certain school that uh brought about a negative public
reaction. Uh this may be a disciplinary action or something of this type
and this uh things of this kind would help you to lose elections.

Q: Do you see any difference in the public's attitude toward the teachers as
far as this change in being for or against these bonds?

A:
Well, uh we had uh different periods when the public seems to have a lot
of confidence in teachers generally and then we go through another period
sometime will last for seven, eight, or ten years in which a lot of public
opinion is very negative. Sometimes this is generated at the national level
as for example and I can't think of uh the study the National Council for
Excellence or something of this sort that gave a report about uh seven,
eight, ten years ago uh was very negative toward education, uh toward teachers,
the role of teachers in particular and this uh uh gave a lot of support
to the attitude of some parents that teachers are not doing their jobs until
now it's uh almost a national disease that uh you see magazine article about
uh teachers uh not teaching. And there's been a lot at the in the media
that has uh taken confidence away from teachers and I think it's regrettable
really.

Q: Do you think there should be merit pay for teachers?

A:
Yes I do and no I don't. Uh it's a yes and no type of thing. For example,
I think uh department heads ought to be paid more. I think uh team leaders
ought to be paid more. Uh I think uh a teacher--that if we can determine,
if we can find a way to determine that a teacher who has taught five years
is doing a good job--ought to get more pay than one who has taught ten years
and is doing a poor job. But how do you determine this? I don't know how
to determine this and uh for that reason I am afraid of merit pay. I really
am. I'm afraid that in uh too many cases it would become uh a favor kind
of thing to pass out. I think it's regrettable that a good, hard-working,
dedicated teacher teaching ten years doesn't get any more pay than one who
uh isn't trying very hard, isn't getting very good results.

Q: Do you feel the same thing should be applied to principals?

A:
Sure. Don't know how you do it again. Uh.

Q: Did you think--I started to ask you do you think you would have
been one of them who got the merit pay but I won't do that. I'll ask you...

A:
(Laughter)
I would say yes. If anybody, if ask anyone and they'll say yes.

Q: I'll reword the question and say do you feel you were very
effective as a principal that...

A:
Yes, I do. I really do. I feel that I was because, and I still get feedback
from teachers that makes me feel that I was and I get a lot of feedback
from uh former students. Some of them are almost as old as I am, but I do.
I get feedback which tells me this and I rarely ever had major discipline
problems in school uh with uh students and it was very rare that uh I had
any conflict situations with teachers, very seldom and uh those weren't
lasting.

Q: If you have, you mentioned former students and when they came back and talk
about remembering being in your school, do they point to one thing that they remember
most about you, the one thing that sticks in their minds?

A:
Sometimes, sometimes. I remember oh, oh I remember some four or five years
ago uh I uh saw a woman who had to make herself known to me because it had
been many years since I had her in school and uh we were talking and she
said I remember the very time I got my confidence and you caused it. See
uh that kind of feedback is quite rewarding.

Q: If you were evaluating yourself, what were the things that you did that
made you an effective principal?

A:
Well, I uh in dealing with youngsters I always tried to deal with them
fairly. I always tried to make them feel like I expected certain things
of them. I tried to be consistent in dealing with them. I didn't threaten
them. If I told them that you do so and so something will happen, I saw
to it that that took place. Uh, uh, well, that's consistency. Of course,
in dealing with them and uh with uh--I don't know with teachers I tried
to make teachers feel that I respected them, that I supported them, that
I would get all the help for them that I could get for them, and uh factors
of that kind.

Q: If you were going to give advice, say one of us is going to be a new principal
and we've never been one, we're going into administration, first, would you
advise us to do it? Do you think that's something, a profession you would recommend
to people, to be a principal?

A:
Well, I think we need principals and people who want to be principals. I don't
uh I don't think I don't think people ought to be principals unless they really
want to be, unless they feel like that they that they can play this role, that
they can uh do whatever principals can do to help uh uh have a better school.

Q: If you had to give us uh advise, give us a key to success as a principal,
what would you tell us to do?

A:
Make the core of your of all of your activity the development of learning
climate, that everything you do must contribute to a wholesome learning
climate and that whatever else that goes on around there around school that
doesn't do that, forget it.

Q: And I take it then that would also be your key to having an effective school--be
the same thing. What is the relationship between a principal and the effectiveness
of the school?

A:
Can you have an effective school and an ineffective principal? Yell, if
you have good, if it's staffed with uh with high-powered teachers and uh
as long as he doesn't do a lot of negatives, uh it might be a right good
school. I think it would be a better school if he could play his role with
that kind of a staff.

Q: Interesting. Describe for us your typical work day in terms of how you spent
your time.

A:
Well, sometimes at the junior high school level, now uh keep in mind that
the junior high school level was seventh and through ninth grade and we
had youngsters in school who were nineteen years of age and because they
were nineteen years of age and in junior high school and not graduating
from high school, they uh often created discipline problems uh because of
their size and their age and the fact that they felt they didn't belong
uh and sometimes I would say half of my day was dealing with discipline
problems.

Q: What do you think should be done with these children who are like this?
What could be done to help these children?

A:
I think the community uh has to face up to this sometime. I don't know
when it's ever going to happen as to whether or not the overage youngster
in the middle and the and who disrupts learning and takes away from all
the other kids in the classroom, whether or not he's entitled to be there.
The attitude now is that if he's of an age to be in school and his parents
can get him to go to school, the school has to find a place for him, do
something for him. Well, if the community--would many communities are searching
for an answer to this. Not many have been successful. I don't know what
it is really, what the answer is, but part of my answer is that he should
not be allowed in the conventional school to continue to disrupt the learning
of the other kids and if that's--he does not have that right and neither
do his parents have that right. And in some classrooms uh one or two youngsters
can uh can almost eliminate worthwhile learning activities.

Q: I interrupted you. You were saying that in seventh through ninth grades
most of your day was handling discipline.

A:
No, sometimes that was true. Sometimes it wasn't true. Now there when
I got an assistant principal who helped with this type of thing of course
then I had much more time to do the other kinds of things.

Q: This was in the junior high?

A:

And then of course, yes, of course, I always tried to keep foremost the
uh the development of good learning climate. Uh this is uh a lot of things.
Sometimes it's helping get more materials, it's having meetings. Uh I very
strongly believe that the principal uh ought to be involved with a lot of
discussions with uh teachers individually and in small groups and that means
uh of course that means scheduling teachers so they have time to meet with
the principal. And it can't all be done after school when everybody's tired.
I think you can have general staff meetings once in a while after school.
You have to have really. But uh but a principal ought to spend a lot of
time working with his teachers.

Q: How much of your time did you spend in classrooms doing observations?

A:
You mean just sit there watching?

Q: Uh hun.

A:
Not much. Very little.

Q: How did you get your impressions of how well your teachers
were doing with their instruction? Was it just generally impressions from being
in the building?

A:
Well, uh being in the classroom sometimes in and out. To just go in and
sit for a whole class period uh I think is a negative action. I don't think
you need all that time to find out and you can find out how well a teacher's
doing by talking with the youngsters. I don't need to ask questions to check
up on the teacher but to talk about what they're studying, what they're
learning, what project are you involved in, uh in literature what are you
reading now? And if the kid doesn't know uh that tells you something uh
sometimes he doesn't know. Well, of course, it tells you about the youngster.
Sometimes it tells you about the teacher if there's enough of them that
don't know. But uh but I think you can tell a great deal about the effectiveness
of the teacher by the attitude that the youngsters have about what they're
studying.

Q: How active were the parents of your students in what was going on in the
school?

A:
Well, at the last school I was in we had lots of parents coming in to
uh help as volunteer aides. In fact, uh sometimes it worked negatively.
If a parent would get up and rush through the morning chores at home, get
the kids off to school, uh change his or her clothes, come into the school
to offer to help and uh you couldn't find anything for them to do, that's
very bad. Uh you go to a teacher and say look I got some help for you today.
Would you like to use this person. I can't today. And you go to two or three
places, and it just doesn't suit today, this is bad. Usually if I had some
kind of a chore I had to do uh to put them on I would do that to try to
use them. But by and large they would help in the media center. They would
help sometimes with certain types of secretarial duties--secretary was loaded
down. Uh, but chiefly they uh were used in the classroom helping the teacher
with maybe three or four youngsters or a small group doing something with
them or giving them practice with a certain type of arithmetic. Uh always
of course under the direction of the teacher. Now if the volunteer started
to take it away from the teacher, which didn't happen very often but uh
it did a couple of times, you kind of eased that volunteer out. Because
uh once in a while if you run into somebody that felt like I can do it better
than the teacher's doing it, then they'd go outside and reflect that in
the community and that's very negative kind of thing. You can't use much
of that kind of help.

Q: What type of things did your school do to promote a good school/community
relationship?

A:
Well, we always had that little core that belonged to the parent-teacher
association that came in. Of course, they met the teachers, and the teachers
talked to them. And we invited parents to come into certain activities at
the school and we would give them tours around. Say just make yourself at
home, walk around and see what's going on and uh...When we first started
they were surprised that it wasn't bedlam. Uh but uh we put out usually
I would aim to get a letter out to the families once a week in which I not
only just made announcements but I also would try to tell them three or
four places where something special was going on in the school. Uh I think
parents appreciate this type of information. Now uh if they didn't--pretty
soon the kids wouldn't carry the paper home. You'd find it on the school
ground or out in the neighborhood. But uh some parents don't want to see
anything brought home from school so the youngster doesn't bring it. But
uh by and large, they do and uh and uh I think the letter from the school
is very effective. Uh if the parent had a problem and they would come in
uh a little belligerent in their attitude you know angry and this type of
thing, uh I always invited them to come in where it was quiet and alone
and uh o.k., now what's the problem. Tell me about it. And if it involved
uh the teacher and we could get the teacher in to explain their side--because
often with the message the youngster carried home wasn't the same message
the teachers had to tell. And uh after a while uh bring all this out. Then
I generally used this technique. 0.K., now what shall we do about it? What's
the answer? And uh I'd listen to what they said. Sometimes it was very possible
they quieted down and were very reasonable about it. Sometimes it was something
I couldn't do and I said well, I can't do that. We just talk about it uh
I used the same technique basically when the teacher had a problem with
a youngster. If the teacher would bring a youngster to me--this was particularly
at the junior high school level where I had seen more of this type of thing--and
the teacher would tell me what kind of problem the kid was having and why
he was disrupting the class and why he was disrespectful to the teacher.
In that way then I would always say to the youngster, now you tell your
story and he would tell his story. Quite often he would just grunt and say
uh that's it you know. And then I'd always say to the teacher, now what
are we going to do with him because I wanted the youngster to always know
that in that classroom, the teacher is in charge and I'm backing the teacher.
And uh the teacher would generally would have an alternative say o.k. either
this or this. And uh usually with uh dealing with parents like that when
they had a grievance un they'd generally go away feeling like well at least
I was treated fairly. Uh what can I add?

Q: When you had an assistant who usually handled the irate parents coming in
or the problems from the classroom? Did you usually take care of those or did
the assistant?

A:
Well, if quite often when they're irate, they want to come see the principal
and if they want to see me uh o.k. They did. If the assistant principal
was on hand he generally would talk to them until I got there. If uh came
in and wanted to talk about something, quite often they'd talk to the assistant
principal because I had a good one that people in the community respected,
that they would talk to him and feel like they had gotten treated fairly
and uh treated with respect. But in the real tough cases, of course, I'd
always end up with them too, see, either way. And uh once in a while, not
very often, but there were more than one time when maybe some parent would
come in and very loudly proclaiming their grievance and uh wanting to find
out where's that teacher, that so and so and uh fortunately I headed off
every one of those, every one. I was lucky. Cause it's a terrible thing
for a parent to come in and beat up a teacher in front of the kids or to
verbally abuse them in front of the classroom. So we were lucky in that
respect.

Q: What do you see as the role of a vice principal as opposed to the principal?

A:
Well, I think the vice principal ought to help the principal out in every
way he can from an administrative point of view, from the standpoint of
any of your problems--attendance problems, uh details of uh that has to
be done by somebody, even to making reports, some reports are the ones.

Q: How did you delegate to your assistant? In other words, when you got a new
assistant, how did you delegate to him what you felt his jobs were to be?

A:
Oh, I'd just sit down and talk, you know, talk it over and I'd say now
look I feel like I ought to be the education leader here and I want to use
all the time I can. Now what can you do? Can you uh handle most of the discipline
cases? Can you take care of all the little errands where people ask you
to do things and things of this kind. And uh we'd just work it out uh so
that he had a right clear idea of the kinds of things he could do and where
his authority uh sort of ended and where he ought to consult with me and
this type of thing. And, of course, they're not always single. Now you know
in the end I'm still responsible and there are certain decisions that maybe
you shouldn't make by yourself and you'll just have to play that by feel.
So I had good relationship with the assistant and uh they were a great deal
of help to me.

Q: Did you try to do any things to train the assistant in the instructional
aspects--the things that you were doing for the time when he would be a principal?

A:
Well, the last one I had uh was at Valley View where you were. You remember
Mr. McCurio? And, of course, it was understood with Mr. McCurio when he
first came there that uh uh I would be retiring pretty soon and you're going
to take over here as principal, so anything you can learn uh with me while
we're here o.k. Uh you just learn. And uh, of course, he sat in and participated
in a lot of our staff meetings, uh particularly the team meetings. And lots
of time he couldn't, but uh he would play that role and sit in and take
part as a contributing member.

Q: A little bit different type question. Elementary education tends as far
as the teachers goes, is dominated by women. How important is it to try to get
men teachers at the elementary level?

A:
Well, I think uh men have uh just as much role in the elementary school
as women have. Uh the community uh doesn't look on it uh with as much prestige
as in the in the high school. So most of the men who teach want to teach
in the high school because of the prestige factor there or to coach in the
athletic program. Uh and if uh an elementary school opens up where they
need somebody to crack down on the kids, the board often will hire a coach,
a man coach. The idea being that uh he'll bring order to the place and uh
sometimes coaches are very good at this type of thing and sometimes they
aren't. Because uh a lot of people don't like to be bossed. If that's the
uh way that the if the coach becoming principal is going to operate the
school like the way he directs the team, it often won't work.

Q: How effective do you feel women administrators are?

A:
I don't see any difference.

Q: You never had like a woman assistant, your assistants were always
male?

A:
No, no, right never had but I've known some women principals who were
better than some men principals. And uh the fact that they're women doesn't
make that difference in disciplinary control in the classroom. Uh, and neither
would it in the school as principal and their influence on behavior. The
most effective disciplinarian I ever had was a little blond woman who weighed
ninety pounds.

Q: What was her secret?

A:
I don't know. I asked her myself.
(Laughter)
Gee, here she was in junior high school. Some of these great big boys
eighteen years old you know standing up here like this see (gesture). She
never had any problems with them but so and while uh across the hall from
her--not directly across--but across the hall from her I had an ex-football
player who was six-feet-two weighed about 180 pounds and he just had a heck
of a time with them all the time. So that's a fact. The difference is not
in the sex, see. It's all the other things, some of them a little hard to
put your finger on, but uh it's the other characteristics that make the
good teacher or the uh good principal rather than sex.

Q: Do you think maybe the community accepts that more though as a male position?
They think more of it if you have a male or do you think that the times have changed
enough that it doesn't matter?

A:
Well, I think it depends on what community you're in. It's a factor there
uh some communities where uh uh where the attitude of the adults is uh definitely
uh male-oriented in regard to uh uh positions of authority like uh the principalship,
the superintendency, this sort of thing--the mayor and the governor and
the president...
(Laughter)
Well, in 1928 when I started to teach we had a woman superintendent up
until uh 1933 when we became a county unit. And up until that time the uh
superintendents of school were elected in West Virginia. Uh and uh she was
elected for more than one term. I don't know how many terms she served,
but then when we became a county unit the uh uh the board of education we
elected a five-man board. And the board then employed the superintendent
and attempted to employ somebody who was educated and trained for the superintendency.
While back in the days when they were un elected, you could elect the cow
if uh...
(Laughter)

Q: No qualifications?

A: No.

Q: Do you think it's better to have a superintendent who's appointed
or a superintendent who's elected?

A:
Oh, appointed by all means. Uh the elected superintendent would be elected
uh on the basis of uh charisma, on how well he persuades the electorate,
uh this sort of thing. And these may be qualifications as his role for
public relations man but not as an educational leader.

Q: Now your board is elected. Is that correct?

A:
Yes.

Q: Now some places in Virginia, they have appointed boards as
opposed to elected...

A:
I know that...

Q: Do you feel one way is better than another on a board of education?

A:
Well, I've never worked with any kind other than an elected board so I
can't judge.

Q: Did you get much politics into it then?

A:
We do in some counties. Fortunately in this county we have not been plagued
with politics on the school board. It's a nonpartisan uh school board uh.
They do not declare what party they belong to when they're running and they
don't run on a party basis. Uh the place politics plays, its role in some
counties is that the uh the custodians and the bus drivers and so on were
hired somewhat on the basis of favoritism. Uh but uh that's uh that's disappearing.
Uh some of the counties it use to be very bad in that respect. Uh we don't
hear much of it anymore. And the same way with the hiring of teachers. By
the way I remember many, many years ago one of our counties along in February
had uh pink slips in the envelop with pay checks on Friday for somewhat
like twenty-five or twenty-six teachers would not be needed on Monday morning.
They brought in uh that many new teachers. That was purely political. But,
of course, with uh now we have uh our education associations, uh and uh
teacher tenure, and things of that kind to protect the teacher. And, of
course, in that's been great but sometimes it protects the poor teacher
too. But there isn't any perfect answer to any of these problems but uh
but the politics in that respect have disappeared pretty much. Now you can't
dismiss a teacher unless you have it very well documented. You better. Otherwise
you'll end up in court.

Q: How active is the teacher association in Berkeley County, the education
association?

A: Well, the state education association in West Virginia now is not very
popular with some of our teachers because they've turned the state education
association into a labor organization just as NEA has been turned into a labor
organization. Now and, of course, they're striking for uh negotiations and the
right to strike and uh and this type of thing. And a lot of teachers don't want
to get involved in this sort of thing. They would still like to feel like they're
professional people and will be treated that way. And yet the community out
here doesn't seem to uh recognize this and I think uh the attitude of the community
is generally going to force teachers to become labor-oriented. I don't see any...I'm
very much opposed to it, but I don't see any way out of it. Because uh we have,
for example, we have people, some men, we have people, for example, who are
high school dropouts who are working at General Motors and places like that
right here in our county now doing uh well uh uh sorting chores and this type
of thing, uh nothing of any particular responsibility and they're getting what
uh uh twelve, thirteen, fourteen dollars an hour plus all the perks that go
with it. Uh and uh while teachers right here in the same county are starting
out now at something like $14,000, $15,000, something like that and so what's
the answer. I don't know. But uh if the community is not going to accept the
teacher as a highly-trained professional then I think they're going to force
them to become labor-oriented and use labor tactics. You don't want to hear
this maybe. I don't know how you stand on this issue and I'm not going to ask
you. But uh I hate to see it come. Yet on the other hand I don't see how it
can be avoided.

Q: What was the toughest decision you ever had to make as a principal?

A:
I think uh uh the one that probably gave me the uh greatest problem was
when I closed the uh uh the junior high school lunch period, made it a closed
campus so they couldn't leave, couldn't leave, everybody had to stay. Why
was that so hard?
Well, I got a lot of opposition. Lot of parents said, you can't tell me
that I can't have my youngster come home for lunch.

Q: Why did you have to close it?

A:
Well, uh, of course, uh uh the youngsters were scattering out all over
town at noon and uh I was spending all afternoon uh dealing with the problems
that developed at the lunch hour. Uh they'd go through somebody's yard,
knock their clothes off the line, go down the street, kick their garbage
cans out in the street, stone the dog. Uh the manager of the five and dime
would call me and say so and so was in here a while ago and I know they
stole something. I'd say well, why didn't you apprehend them. Well, it was
a public relations matter. Well, how about me? And uh and so on it uh uh
it was that kind of thing. And uh and, of course, they were playing uh gambling
on pinball machines. Uh I never discovered any place that had slot machines.
Of course, they've been out against the law for a while, a long while. But
they were engaged in a lot, many such activities. So uh the only way I could
see to uh to stop it would be to, and, of course, a lot of them were getting
back to school late. So, of course, I talked it over with the staff and
uh with the superintendent, and the superintendent he said well, he said,
if you get by with it go ahead. So we closed the campus and uh that was
about the middle of the year, and by the next year everybody accepted it.
It wasn't any problem.

Q: But the parents gave you the most trouble on it?

A:
Oh, yeah. And, of course, youngsters did too. Those who wanted to run
around at noon uh uh didn't like it a bit. Another problem we had was with
uh was uh a conveyor that drove a little bus that sold drinks and sandwiches
and all this kind of thing would park out in the street right in front of
the school. And the street which had heavy traffic on it at noontime from
the high school--automobile traffic you see because we're right across from
the high school uh the street was part of the campus--it was just full of
kids out there around that uh that uh wagon. And he was uh allowing some
of the youngsters to get in the front of his uh bus and neck. Just so many
problems that went along with that noontime thing that year. I was involved
with the noontime problems more than I was with anything else. So we closed
the campus and it uh and it worked fine. It worked fine, but it was difficult
going through the uh changeover.

Q: How supportive did you find the superintendent and the school board for
decisions you would have to make?

A:
Very. I was never uh there was never a case where I was uh vetoed. Uh
there were a couple of times when the superintendent uh said I don't think
you'll get by with this time, but uh we did. And he let he just let me hanging
and we got through all right. He never did anything see against it. There
wasn't very much he could do to support it except maybe to say, well, that's
the way it is.

Q: Generally then he let you decide what was to be done at your building?

A:
Oh, yes, yes. I had great support in that respect from the superintendent
and the school board.

Q: I think maybe to conclude here--I think we're going to need to. You began
did you say in 1928?